Where To Buy Microgreen Trays (Don't Buy Cheap Garbage!)

When I first started my microgreens business four years ago, I ended up buying the wrong trays. Since then, I've actually switched over all of my trays to these ones that I use now. I have at least 500 of these trays. I think that they're the best on the market, and I probably will never buy another tray.

I want to save you the trouble that I went through when I first started my microgreens business so as to prevent you from having a tray graveyard like I had. After using cheap, flimsy trays as well as the deeper trays, I've determined that the best trays for microgreens are the shallow trays that are super sturdy and strong. You can read more about these trays here.

Now, I've been buying trays from an awesome company called Bootstrap Farmer, and they’ve really exceeded my expectations. This is a company that specializes in farming and farm products, so they dedicate a lot of time, energy, resources, money, and research into their products. Given that this type of company directly supports farmers, I believe it’s our obligation and responsibility to be supporting the companies that support us. Doing so keeps all of the money in the same system, which means that we can progress the agricultural movement forward as a whole. As Bootstrap Farmer develops products that support microgreens farmers, we support them in return by paying money for those products. Plus, the company then gets to do more research and come out with new tools and products for us. This is overall an amazing symbiotic relationship to have in a business.

Bootstrap Farmer has exceeded my expectations in many ways, but especially in fast shipping. Whenever I’ve ordered trays from them, they’ve always arrived very quickly. I really like how they package the trays with cardboard inserts that keep everything nice and snug.

These trays are also BPA free and food safe, so you can be confident that these trays are safe to be growing your microgreens in and therefore, safe for your customers to be consuming. Moreover, these trays are backed by warranty and guaranteed crack free for two years. Out of all of the trays that I now use for my farm, I’ve only had one or two trays get a little crack or chip. When that happened, I simply sent a picture off to the company, and they replaced it right away, no questions asked. So, their customer service is certainly point. Knowing that these trays are sturdy is a huge benefit, so you can avoid having to buy the same equipment over and over again. With these trays, you buy them once, and they’re going to last forever.

There’s quite a few other benefits to using these trays that I've noticed in my farm. Because they're so strong, you can slap them together easily, which is great for after you harvest and get all of the roots in the soil out of them. Also, you can carry one in each hand, which you can't really do with the flimsy trays, because they'll crack and break. So instead of having to take one at a time, you can carry two at a time. This is going to drastically improve your efficiency in your farm whenever you're moving trays around.

As I mentioned in this blog, the cheap trays will sag in the middle, which throws off the quality of your product and messes with your watering. These cheap trays cause uneven distribution of the water. But, because the trays I recommend are so strong, they actually don't sag in the middle, so you’re going to get an even distribution of water in the bottom of that tray, which allows the soil or other growing medium to bring up water more evenly. 

I’ve also noticed that when you first get the trays, they can be a little bit elevated in the middle. They are designed this way because after a lot of use, the middle can get lowered down a little bit, and it eventually levels out. In my opinion, that's a really strategic design on their part and another reason why we should be supporting this company because they're really thinking about the needs of microgreens farmers and farmers in general. 

Bootstrap Farmers also has deep trays that are very sturdy. But, as I mentioned, I don’t recommend buying the deeper trays. If you really love a deeper tray, go for it. You can still buy those trays through Bootstrap Farmer and get a strong heavy-duty tray.

What’s also really cool about the Bootstrap trays is that they don't only offer them in black like most other trays. They also offer them in white, as well as a bunch of different colors. I personally prefer the black trays because I use black racks, and everything in black looks super sleek. But, the color trays can be a lot of fun. Maybe you're growing with kids, and they would love to see the colorful trays. They can also be used for experiments. I've seen people put a little piece of tape on their trays to mark them. I’ll simply do a test run with the different colors and then, I'll basically have a note that says what went in each tray. The colors would make it easy to distinguish each variety. I even put my business logo on the edge of each tray.

So now you know exactly where to buy the best microgreens trays on the market, but what if you want to learn more about the other supplies, as well as the whole business side running a microgreens business? I teamed up with Dave from Micro Acres up in Canada, and we created an amazing new product called the Microgreens Mentors. When you sign up for this program, you get one video every month of us talking about microgreens business on a very high level. You're going to learn a ton of information and a bunch of new ideas for your business, as well as how to pivot in recent times with crazy things going on in the world. It's an amazing resource. You're going to learn so much. We also added an 11 page resource sheet that reviews all of the supplies, equipment, and seeds that we're using, as well as links on where to purchase them. We even added in notes, tips, and tricks that go along with each of these different pieces of equipment. It’s a super useful resource, and I know you’ll love it. Click here if you want to learn more about this product.

Also, be sure to join my Microgreens Support Group on Facebook to connect with thousands of growers all over the world.